Children's mental health is now a national emergency, health leaders say
Pandemic fatigue: One-in-three Canadians report struggles with mental health; 23% say they’re ‘depressed’ - "Entering the third year of the pandemic, the picture of mental health in Canada is one of exhaustion and increasing trauma. A new study from the Angus Reid Institute finds a population largely fatigued, frustrated, and anxious – and one-in-three (36%) Canadians saying they are struggling with their mental health."
Hokkaido senior secretly gets four doses of COVID-19 vaccine - “I thought the more times I got it, the more effective it would be”
Jennifer 'I stand with Ukraine' Rubin 🇺🇦🇺🇦 on Twitter - "As we recognize that covid-19 is not a deadly or even severe disease for the vast majority of responsible Americans, we can stop agonizing over “cases” and focus on those who are hospitalized or at risk of dying."
Replies: "This take was 100% as valid and obvious by May of 2020. Where have you been this whole time, Jen?"
“As we move closer to the ‘22 midterms, we must shift to a more common sense approach. Our party’s current approach to Covid could end up costing us control of Congress. We cannot let that happen.”
"There are a lot of people who have said this since April/May 2020. They have been called bad Americans and neighbors. They have been called conspiracy theorists. They have been called crazy. They have been treated poorly."
"So, a week ago it was the winter of death? Today its "don't fret"? Interesting change in opinion."
Estimation of US Children’s Educational Attainment and Years of Life Lost Associated With Primary School Closures During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic - "This decision analytical model found that missed instruction during 2020 could be associated with an estimated 13.8 (95% CI 2.5-42.1) million years of life lost based on data from US studies and an estimated 0.8 (95% CI 0.1-2.4) million years of life lost based on data from European studies. This estimated loss in life expectancy was likely to be greater than would have been observed if leaving primary schools open had led to an expansion of the first wave of the pandemic... These findings suggest that the decision to close US public primary schools in the early months of 2020 may be associated with a decrease in life expectancy for US children."
Meghan Maureen on Twitter - "The CDC & teachers' unions did more harm to kids in two years than the virus ever did."
Federalist Perspectives - Posts | Facebook - "Dear dictionary: How do you spell "manipulative framing" and "technically true statements" in one image? Thanks."
"the header suggests, through rhetorical framing, that Dems have done a better job addressing the virus. The graph (and study) they use to justify this claim explains that the virus was far worse in Dem areas and that the rates have declined more noticeably than in Republican areas... where the virus was less of an issue. The graph (and study) also show that the virus remains worse in Dem areas than in Rep areas. So can we say that Dems have done a better job? There is still a decline in Rep areas. Why the need to contrast Dem and Rep areas like that? The tweet is relying on a 'technical truth' to avoid lying."
A Review of COVID-19 Deaths in Two California Counties Drops the Total by Nearly 25% - "Early in the pandemic, questioning the COVID-19 death count was labeled a conspiracy theory by the corporate media. This position was always absurd based on the very loose criteria put out by the National Center for Health Statistics for counting a COVID-19 death. The ability to presume COVID-19 and place it as a cause of death during a period of perverse financial incentives for hospitals invited inflation of the fatality numbers. Medicare increased payment for COVID-19 patients, and private insurers covered the charges in full. These policies prevented the loss of co-pays and co-insurance unpaid by patients and additional reimbursement from government programs... Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and infectious disease at the University of California San Francisco, believes the CDC will ask all counties to do a similar assessment and believes an accurate accounting matters... A review of COVID-19 deaths in Minnesota found nearly 40% of deaths recorded were not attributable to COVID-19. Another study in New Jersey found that 89% of COVID-19 deaths were among patients with do-not-resuscitate orders before contracting the virus. Under normal conditions, patients with a terminal disease are not considered to have died from a respiratory virus in end-stage illness. It may send their body into a crisis it cannot overcome, contributing to a death a bit sooner than without it. This chain of events is typical in end-stage disease. Imperial College researcher Neil Ferguson predicted this type of pattern in testimony before the British Parliament early in the pandemic:
“By the end of the year, what proportion of those people who’ve died from COVID-19 would have died anyhow?” Ferguson asked. “It might be as much as half to two-thirds of the deaths we’re seeing from COVID-19, because it’s affecting people who are either at the end of their lives or in poor health conditions. So I think these considerations are very valid.”"
Risk Analysis: Data Never Speaks for Itself - WSJ - "Mr. Wilson is right to note that "noise" makes most large-scale attacks a surprise, but this problem is familiar to financial risk managers (my occupation, and that of many Journal readers)... data is not information, and it isn't someone else's job to process and compress this information. Reports are mainly shaped by demand, not supply. A good risk report is a one-pager, highlighting key issues and providing supporting documentation in an appendix... if you want probabilities and not just possibilities, you need a good theory of what is happening; the data never speaks for itself." - Eric Falkenstein, Ph.D.
A covid hystericist claimed that "I’m not going to sit here and have a discussion about how to evaluate risk via mathematical models. There are literally hundreds of models that can be applied. The data I posted speaks for itself, you just don’t like it because it’s not confirming your biases.", when the "data" he posted was just a map of the US showing states classified by overdose death increase in 2020 and he just eyeballed it to proclaim that there was no link between lockdowns and overdose deaths
Florida woman tries to kiss multiple strangers, then calls 911 to complain the bar isn't social distancing - "according to cops in Melbourne, Fla., Audra Adams, who placed multiple complaints to 911, was trying to kiss customers who were social distancing from her personally."
Florida's 7-Day Coronavirus Case Average Per Capita Lower than All But Two States - "Florida, which came under a constant stream of criticism from corporate media outlets and blue state leaders throughout the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, is faring better than nearly every other state in the country in terms of case averages per capita, as the state’s two-week average of cases dropped by 33 percent... Only Louisiana and Hawaii reported lower figures per 100,000 residents"
Don’t Bother Judging Florida Without Age-Adjusted Covid Stats - WSJ - " Rebecca Howard criticizes Florida for rejecting harsh Covid restrictions (Letters, Nov. 4). Her evidence that the “trade-off” of more freedom for lives was not “worth it” is that “Florida has the seventh-most deaths per 100,000 residents, whereas California ranks 35th among the states.” First, the acceptability of unprecedented restrictions on freedom is not established by such a fact. If government could substantially reduce annual deaths in the U.S., say by one million, by forcing each of us to live forever alone in an antiseptic bubble, would such a mandate be appropriate? Second, Ms. Howard’s simple fact is misleading. On an age-adjusted basis, Florida’s Covid death toll is 22nd in the country—better than that of New Jersey, New York and other jurisdictions whose citizens suffered harsher lockdowns. California’s age-adjusted Covid death toll is 30th—that is, along with Florida, in the middle of the pack."
CDC Director: Over 75% Of COVID Deaths In Vaccinated Had ‘At Least 4 Comorbidities’
Wait till they realise how many comorbidities most of the unvaccinated dead had
Biden faces deepening Democratic rift over Title 42 - "The administration’s decision to rescind Title 42 — the Trump-era policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border and blocks them from seeking asylum due to the coronavirus pandemic — is opening a rift not only between Biden and vulnerable Democratic incumbents but also with influential senators, who are seeking public distance from the decision."
RNC Research on Twitter - "Beto O'Rourke: "I think it's time to end Title 42. I don't think we should have ever implemented it."
Covid means you should lockdown your population forever but it's racist to ever have infection control at the border
Stop Saying Vaccines Don’t Work for the Immunocompromised - The Atlantic - "Immunocompromised people have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic, and even those who have been fully vaccinated wonder if they’re really safe. News stories highlight their struggles to adapt to a society that “doesn’t seem to care whether they survive.” “I could just go outside and within two weeks, I could be dead,” a fibromyalgia sufferer told ABC News last month. She went on to say, “It kind of feels like immunocompromised people are getting sacrificed.” This dramatic coverage underscores the continuing risks of the pandemic, especially for those who are most vulnerable: Immunocompromised people who get vaccinated aren’t quite as safe as the general vaccinated population. (The degree of added risk depends on the underlying condition.) But well-intentioned stories on this issue sometimes overstate the case, claiming that COVID shots for the immunocompromised are “ineffective” or “cannot work on everyone.” That is incorrect, and it hinders uptake of vaccines. The shots do provide these patients with very meaningful protection as a rule, Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told me. To suggest otherwise “is just a complete distortion … It’s just scaring people, and it’s not saving lives.”... Antibodies matter, but they matter most for preventing illness, at any level of severity. Regarding the most dangerous outcomes from disease, recent research from the CDC indicates that—shot for shot—the immunocompromised achieve most of the same benefits as healthy people. One study, published in March, looked at the pandemic’s Delta wave and found that three doses of an mRNA vaccine gave immunocompromised people 87 percent protection against hospitalization, compared with 97 percent for others. Another CDC report, also out last month, suggested that on the very worst outcomes—the need for a breathing tube, or death—mRNA vaccines were 74 percent effective for immunocompromised patients (including many who hadn’t gotten all their shots), and 92 percent effective for the immunocompetent... That reassurance means all the more when so many members of the chronic-disease community feel left for dead by the casual reversals of pandemic funding and restrictions. But in place of measured consolation from the experts, they find offhanded comments saying that the vaccines “don’t work” for them (as one public-health-school dean tweeted earlier this month). This despairing rhetoric can’t be helping to encourage vaccination... Michael Putman, a rheumatologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin who cares for many patients receiving immunosuppressive medications for autoimmune diseases, confirms that it’s a battle to get his patients inoculated. “The idea that the vaccines don’t work for immunocompromised people has definitely contributed to hesitancy”... Robert Rakita, a transplant-infectious-disease specialist at the University of Washington, told me that some of his patients have died from COVID despite having had three or four mRNA injections. He recommends that all vaccinated organ recipients continue to wear a mask and avoid crowded indoor activities. But such patients make up just 8 percent of the 7 million Americans estimated to be taking medications that weaken their immune system. When COVID reporting casually lumps together all “immunocompromised” patients, it papers over these differences. Readers are left to think that a fibromyalgia patient and a kidney recipient face similar risks. For chronically ill people, political power derives in part from group solidarity; the larger the contingent, the louder the voice. Yet in pursuit of visibility and justice, the “vaccinated but vulnerable” category may be expanded well beyond what the science suggests, to include not only organ-transplant patients, but also people with diabetes, asthma, obesity, or high blood pressure. According to this paradoxical arithmetic, half of the country can end up in the “high risk” category by some definition... Putman, the rheumatologist, uses an example of a 64-year-old doctor counseling a 24-year-old autoimmune patient to take precautions. The patient should probably be admonishing the doctor instead, he told me."
Covid Hystericist Doublethink: the vaccines are effective because they prevent severe disease and death well, but life can never go back to normal and we need endless boosters because they don't protect against infection well
Vaxholes keep getting a free pass on their encouragement of vaccine hesitancy since they don't believe the vaccines work
Thread by @asymmetricinfo on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Every day on this site I come across someone who is indignant that others are going about their lives rather than maintaining a rigorous schedule of testing, social distancing, and masking. I always want to ask: what the hell did you think the endgame of this virus was? Did you really think that people were going to keep masking at work and school *forever*? Test every time they go out in public, *forever*? Quarantine every time they have a casual exposure, *for the rest of their lives*? And if not, when do you think it is going to end? When everyone's vaccinated? Because that's not happening. When covid stops circulating? Because unfortunately, we failed to contain it, and it's now endemic. I'm not even arguing about the merits of forever NPTs and mass testing regimes. I'm just amazed that anyone ever thought that this was going to become the new normal. I think there are things we will keep doing in response to covid. Air purifiers. Masks when you're sick (and for god's sake stay home!) But it was never going to be possible to keep folks masked at work or school forever, or limit social contacts to a few close friends. You should not be on Twitter, waxing indignant to well-boosted people who have resumed their normal lives. You should be doing some deep soul searching about how you so fundamentally misunderstood what was possible for public health to achieve. I was a hardcore lockdown advocate before vaccines. But now we have vaccines, and whether or not you think it's reasonable to ask folks to continue the precautions of Peak Pandemic for the sake of those who cannot or will not vaccinate, it was never going to happen."
Fear is a helluva drug, and a great way to control people
Of course if you think life should ever go back to normal, you are selfish and hate the immunocompromised (it used to be that you wanted grandma to die, but since vaccines came along, covid hystericists need new "vulnerable" populations to bludgeon everyone else with)
Tom Shea on Twitter - "What's an acceptable number of deaths to prevent a mild inconvenience?"
"I don't know. What's an acceptable number of deaths from heart disease to start heavily regulating sugar? What's an Acceptable number of deaths to outlaw smoking? There are much bigger fish to fry if you really want to prevent deaths"
There's Nothing Left to Debate on COVID-19 Vaccines for Kids (also headlined "The Childhood Vaccine Debate Ignores a Crucial Point: Kids Aren't Supposed to Die") - "the argument that kids are, for the most part, unaffected medically by COVID-19 ignores a simple, yet essential, premise. Children are not supposed to die."
Since children are not supposed to die so cost-benefit analysis is irrelevant, we should also ban children from swimming pools so they don't drown
FDA considering second COVID-19 booster in coming months
Protection after COVID-19 booster wanes: study
Time for a fifth dose!
Some scientists criticize Biden’s decision on coronavirus booster shots as premature - The Washington Post - "President Biden vowed to “follow the science” in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, but some scientists say his decision to recommend widespread coronavirus vaccine booster shots relies on incomplete data and will put pressure on regulators yet to approve the plan. The Biden administration’s decision to order up booster shots for vaccinated adults “doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” said Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University. “I think it’s way premature because the science doesn’t say that we need to have a booster right now. It could be a year or two, depending on the data.”... the administration focused on multiple research studies showing that vaccine effectiveness against mild to moderate illness wanes over time, while boosters ramp up antibodies tenfold or more. Most, although not all, of the recent data shows the vaccines continue to provide robust protection against severe disease... Many prominent figures in the scientific and medical communities said that’s the key measure of vaccine success. The vaccines’ main purpose is not to prevent infection, so much as to keep people from getting severely ill or dying, they note, and recent concerns about breakthrough coronavirus infections have been overblown... some experts said the White House was backtracking on its pledge to allow regulators to shape coronavirus policy. Both Biden and Vice President Harris criticized President Donald Trump last year for publicly pressuring regulators to approve the first coronavirus vaccines... Calling for boosters “may be the right decision — let’s see the data — but if it were the _Trump_ administration getting this far out ahead of FDA and CDC on something this significant, there’d be outrage. And appropriately so,” tweeted Jason L. Schwartz, associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health. “Process matters, no matter which party is in power.”... "The vaccines were never meant to prevent infection""
Good pushback against the moral panic over boosters and an illustration that what we are told is "the science" is not so clear (adding to the 2 top FDA officials departing over political pressure to push boosters). And the US doesn't even seem to have states where covid apartheid was ever extended to those who got their primary series, but not a booster (unlike some other places)
Also an illustration of Covid Hystericist Doublethink
Vaxholes defend trashing the vaccines when Trump was around because of political pressure. But political pressure from Biden is good, of course
Also quoted as an example of an expert claiming the vaccines were never supposed to prevent infection
Covid-19: Moderna and Pfizer vaccines prevent infections as well as symptoms, CDC study finds
Real-World Evidence Confirms High Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and Profound Public Health Impact of Vaccination One Year After Pandemic Declared | Pfizer - "Data suggest Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine prevents asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection"
COVID-19 Vaccine Key to Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ - "Now that there are multiple COVID-19 vaccines available for use, the country is on a path to so-called herd immunity... Herd immunity, or community immunity, happens when a sufficient proportion of a population (the percentage varies by disease) is immune to an infectious disease through vaccination or prior illness to make its spread from person to person unlikely"
Time to memory hole everything
Pfizer Inc. on Twitter - "Emergency uses of the vaccine have not been approved or licensed by US FDA but have been authorized to prevent COVID-19 in ages 5+. See Fact Sheets:"
April 2022, following on from the similar January 2021 tweet. But we're still going to be gaslit about how the vaccines were never meant to prevent infection
LILLEY: Trudeau's vaccination rules for you — not elite athletes - "Justin Trudeau spent the entire election campaign lecturing Canadians on vaccines but now that he’s won power again, his government has decided that pro athletes can cross the border frequently without their shots. The Toronto Raptors announced Monday that visiting players who are unvaccinated will be allowed in under the “national interest exemption.” Wait a minute, I thought Trudeau said that what was in the national interest for everyone to be vaccinated. He promised that every civil servant, every air and train passenger, and every Liberal candidate would be vaccinated to protect you and those who cannot get vaccinated. As for the idea that testing was an alternative, Trudeau was dismissive. “Testing doesn’t prevent you from ending up in the ICU,” Trudeau said earlier this month. Testing is fine for pro athletes, though. If they aren’t vaccinated, they need a negative test to enter the country. These rules don’t apply just to the NBA, they also apply to the Toronto Blue Jays and every NHL team in Canada. Athletes are being given exemptions not given to average citizens or their families who may want to come to Canada for a visit. I said during the election that Trudeau’s main focus around COVID-19 was using it as a political weapon to beat his opponents"
Rupa Subramanya: Message of COVID-19 doom from health officials out of touch with reality - "When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted most pandemic restrictions on July 19, which the British called “Freedom Day,” there were howls of protests from many epidemiologists and public health experts on both sides of the Atlantic. Doomsayers prophesied catastrophe as cases were already on the rise, driven by the potentially immune escaping and highly transmissible Delta variant. But almost a month in, COVID-19 cases are down from a peak of close to nearly 50,000 new cases on July 20 to less than 30,000 new cases per day. And this is well below the earlier peak of almost 60,000 new cases on January 9 in a previous wave. We’ve been told throughout the pandemic that what matters are hospital admissions, especially ICU admissions and mortality, and not just the infection rate. In the UK, hospital admissions have risen from a low point of about 100 admissions per day in mid May to around 700 per day now. While this sounds high, it’s way below the peak of over 4,000 per day in January. There’s a similar pattern in Israel, which reopened in May... herd immunity is a chimera... In Canada, and specifically in Ontario, the approach to further reopening is tied rigidly to specific immunization targets. For example, the government of Premier Doug Ford has made clear that the lifting of remaining restrictions will require that 80 per cent of those eligible have received one dose of the vaccine, 75 per cent of those eligible have received both doses, and at least 70 per cent of Ontarians are fully vaccinated in all of the province’s 34 public health units. This is by far the most stringent standard anywhere in the advanced world. In fact, according to the Oxford COVID-19 Response Tracker, Canada has had the most stringent lockdowns and restrictions of any advanced country with the exception of Australia, which has now been trapped in limbo with their COVID zero policy. While we’re close to attaining these immunization targets, thus largely decoupling hospitalizations from infections, the recent increase in cases and fear of the Delta variant is feeding a narrative of panic and paranoia and the apparent jettisoning of everything we’ve been told to believe until now. Thus, for example, just last month, Peter Juni, the scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, said that COVID-19 would be impossible to eradicate and should be treated as “more like influenza” than the measles. Fast forward to August 11, and Juni is now saying (in an interview with CP24) that he won’t support any further easing of restrictions given the recent rise in cases. What changed in a month?... While the caution of experts such as Juni is laudable, it runs the risk of feeding fear and paradoxically strengthening the hand of anti-vaxxers and hardening vaccine hesitancy. Someone could rightly ask, if vaccines actually work, how could we possibly end up in a catastrophic emergency with ICU beds stretched way beyond the limit? And what was the point? Given the platform they occupy and how seriously their every word is taken, experts need to stay on message: get fully vaccinated, and even if you get COVID-19, your symptoms will likely be mild. The media should do its part by not overhyping every day’s new cases, and ignoring the decoupled hospitalize and mortality rates, and by breaking down new infections into those who’re fully vaccinated as against those who are not. Ontario now publishes such data, and it makes clear that the vast majority of recent infections are among the unvaccinated or those partially vaccinated. This is an optimistic message, but unfortunately what we seem to hear from any of the talking heads is still a narrative of impending doom and disaster. This is doing the public and policy makers a great disservice."
From Aug 2021
The usual winter surge means that countries need to lockdown every winter - regardless of covid
FUREY: Ontario deaths caused by COVID lower than previously reported | Toronto Sun - "Ontario has quietly revealed that the number of persons in the province whose death was caused by COVID-19 is much lower than the story the previous statistics told. Dr. Kieran Moore didn’t even mention it at his morning news conference. None of the reporters participating in the press conference asked about it — they were too busy stressing out over the fact masks will soon be optional... Dr. Neil Rau, an infectious diseases physician in the GTA who has treated COVID patients in hospital since the beginning of the pandemic, explains that it can be a challenge to tease out the role that COVID plays in the health of those with severe underlying conditions. Dr. Rau refers to them as those who are “living at the edge of the cliff”, where COVID or any other illness would be enough to push them over... It was only earlier this year that Ontario revised their hospitalization data to reveal that over half of the people supposedly in hospital due to COVID were in fact admitted to hospital for other reasons and just happened to test positive for the virus. It’s disappointing that all of this data is only now being confirmed. It could have gone a long way in helping us agree to a more targeted response to the virus rather than the blunt, one-size-fits-all approach used the past two years."
Some covid hystericists in a group chat mocked me a while back for pointing out that hospitalisations/deaths with covid were not the same as hospitalisations/deaths due to covid. But the endless breathless reports obsessing about covid numbers have slowed to a trickle, so I suppose even they have woken up
Thread by @KonstantinKisin on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " We're so divided over COVID and have done so much damage to our society because we can't accept that we're not fully in control of our lives and deaths. Underpinning this is the belief that a pandemic is a problem to "fix". It hasn't been "fixed" so it must be someone's fault. What if we accepted, from the outset, that we were about to experience a serious pandemic? A lot of people would die, a lot would be seriously ill and our lives would be seriously disrupted for several years. We would do our best to battle against this disease with changes... ... in behaviour, vaccines, therapeutics and they would all help. But in the end, a lot of people would die, a lot of people would be seriously ill and our lives would be seriously disrupted. I wonder what would have happened if that had been the message from the beginning."
Aaron Siri on Twitter - "I am pleased to report a federal judge rejected the FDA's request to produce the Pfizer Covid vaccine data at 500 pages per month and instead ordered a rate of 55,000 pages per month! Everyone should read the Judge's excellent 3-page decision"
WHO reviewing policy after rejecting emergency use of Canadian-made COVID-19 vaccine | Toronto Sun - "The World Health Organization says it is reviewing its policies after opting not to accept a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Health Canada authorized Medicago’s two-dose Covifenz vaccine in February for adults 18 to 64. WHO did not accept Medicago’s application to be added to the list of vaccines approved on an emergency basis because it has a strict policy not to engage with companies that promote tobacco, and Philip Morris owns about one-fifth of the company."
Covid isn't so much of a threat after all, it seems
Male sex identified by global COVID-19 meta-analysis as a risk factor for death and ITU admission - "Anecdotal evidence suggests that Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, exhibits differences in morbidity and mortality between sexes. Here, we present a meta-analysis of 3,111,714 reported global cases to demonstrate that, whilst there is no difference in the proportion of males and females with confirmed COVID-19, male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission (OR = 2.84; 95% CI = 2.06, 3.92) and higher odds of death (OR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.31, 1.47) compared to females. With few exceptions, the sex bias observed in COVID-19 is a worldwide phenomenon. An appreciation of how sex is influencing COVID-19 outcomes will have important implications for clinical management and mitigation strategies for this disease."
"Structural sexism" is only a problem when women are affected
After two years of COVID, Canadians reluctant to participate in 'normal' activities: poll - "A new Leger poll for Postmedia, conducted just as Omicron was beginning its ascent and before cases began skyrocketing, sought to assess people’s comfort levels for increased contact with other humans. Overall, almost half (46 per cent) of those surveyed between Dec. 10 and 13 were comfortable attending a house party with more than six people. But from there comfort levels quickly dropped off, with respondents expressing far less enthusiasm for riding public transit, attending large family and friend gatherings like weddings or funerals, getting on a plane for a vacation, attending concerts or sporting events or booking a cruise... Only 38 per cent of the public, overall, were comfortable riding public transit; 26 per cent said they “don’t know when I’ll be comfortable” taking mass transit. “In Ottawa, in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), even in Winnipeg, a fair amount of investment and support goes into mass transportation — the subways and GO trains and light rail,” said Andrew Enns, Leger’s executive vice-president. “And I’m almost convinced they’re not based on a 38-per-cent ridership.” “And there are more factors than just comfort — the whole ‘work from home’ plays into that,” Enns said. Will people be commuting to the same degree? Given the public financial support, “at some point someone will have to look at that and say, ‘What do we keep building out to? And what do we keep supporting, and to what degree, if we don’t have the ridership we had pre-pandemic, and if that ridership doesn’t look like it’s returning anytime soon?’” People were least comfortable with the idea of a cruise... When the industry finally does get up on its feet, cruise-line operators may have to pivot, Enns said. “A lot of people who cruise regularly are in that 55-plus age bracket. If that crowd that they relied on so heavily, pre-pandemic, is still saying, ‘I’m just not so sure,’ then you gotta go elsewhere.” The under-35’s were more determined and aggressive about wanting to get on with life, compared to the 55 and older. The younger and healthier are much less vulnerable to serious consequences if they do get COVID, and they also “really chafed” under the restrictions, lockdowns and social isolation... people also aren’t great at predicting how they’ll feel in certain situations, said Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. “We’re not very good at predicting what will make us happy and the same applies to fear: fearful people tend to over-predict their fears,” said Taylor, author of The Psychology of Pandemics... Anxiety levels fluctuate with infection levels and people’s perceived risks. With each new variant, anxiety levels spike, Taylor said. But people have been dealing with the unpredictability of all of this throughout the pandemic. Omicron just adds another layer of uncertainty, said Taylor, who suspects the pandemic will go out with a whimper, and not a bang. “I think it will trickle out. Eventually.”"
The beauty of this is that the chronic stress caused by covid hysteria and the effects of that stress can then be blamed on "long covid"
So many people believe the vaccines don't work. No doubt at least in part due to vaxholes not believing that either
